Insinuations and arguments did not avail, so they had recourse to stratagem. One would not like to suspect that the Bishop of Chester was let into the secret, though he ought to be a capital hand at such things, as he had the hymeneal knot twice tied upon himself. However that may be, the plot was laid, hatched, and the eggs broken as follows:--Towards the end of October, 1827, he accompanied Dr. Blomfield on a visitation through the diocese of Chester. He was taken a little out of his way in order to preach in a church near Warrington. The rector of this place asked him specially;--what was his surprise to find his "old flame," Miss A ***, as mentioned in a former chapter, there ready prepared to be one of his listeners. He walked with her to church, and was delighted with her company; he used to say he never preached, whilst a minister, with greater satisfaction than on that day. Coming home from church he had to hear out compliments about his preaching, and he spent the evening with a clerical party--one was a clergyman who was about being married to the sister of Mr. Spencer's favourite. It was thought everything would come round then, and that some kind of arrangement would be made for the future; but Mr. Spencer, though pleased, {152} was not anywise romantic, nor apt to put his head into a halter from which it would not be so easy to draw it back. It was well, however, that he was pleased, and he evinces as much himself in his Journal, when he says: "Sunday, Oct. 21. I begin this volume with one of the most interesting Sundays I have ever spent. After breakfast with Mr. ***'s family, we went to church about half a mile from the house, where I preached the first sermon which it has been given me to preach in this diocese; and I am pleased that it should be in this church and before N *** N *** among other hearers, with whom I now converse as pleasingly as in former times, but on higher subjects. With her and her sister I walked home, and again to evening service, where I read prayers and Mr. *** preached."